Virgin Galactic Tests Suborbital Spaceship for Tourism

By: Jennifer Hong
10/11/2010 07:03 PM ET

Virgin Galactic tests suborbital spaceship. Space tourism will soon become a reality as Virgin Galactic tests its new spaceship in the Mojave desert. Virgin Galactic “began the project in 2004″ and have 370 deposits going towards a $200,000 trip on the suborbital spaceship.

The commercial suborbital spaceship completed its first free flight on Sunday. It glided from an altitude of 45,000 feet to a perfect landing at the Mojave Air Space Port in California. The spaceship, named VSS Enterprise, has made four previous forays into the air attached beneath a carrier aircraft known as WhiteKnightTwo.

“This was one of the most exciting days in the whole history of Virgin,” company founder and chief executive Richard Branson said in a statement. “For the first time since we seriously began the project in 2004, I watched the world’s first manned commercial spaceship landing on the runway at Mojave Air and Space Port and it was a great moment.”

Sunday’s flight clears spaceship builder Scaled Composites to begin rocket-powered flights next year. The test flights in space will then begin in late 2011 or early 2012. Virgin Galactic is selling rides on the spaceship for $200,000 and has collected $50 million in deposits from 370 customers so far.